Blog Posts by Matthew Quinn

February 23-27 is the annual Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference & Exhibition, an event that brings together 37,000+ healthcare IT professionals, clinicians, executives and vendors from around the world.

To highlight its efforts in supporting health IT innovation, the FCC is participating in a variety of activities during HIMSS.

The Symposium will also feature a review of FCC healthcare programs led by Director of Healthcare Initiatives, Matt Quinn and presentations from the leadership of Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), Health Resource Services Administration (HRSA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and other public and private stakeholders working to bring health IT to rural America.

At last week’s mHeath Innovation Expo, the FCC brought together a terrific mix of exhibitors from the government, telecommunications, healthcare and health IT communities who share a dedication to encouraging new and innovative mHealth products, and streamlining their introduction for use by consumers, including people with disabilities.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who opened the event, said innovation was key to the success of mHealth:

“I was particularly impressed by the high level of technological innovation and harmonization with existing wireless, online and wire line applications. I am glad to see that many of these tech companies realize that mHealth solutions for seniors, those in underserved communities, and people with disabilities, must be launched from the very start, and should not be an afterthought. Only by doing so can we ensure that all consumers seamlessly adopt these technologies to serve their critical day-to-day needs.”

We look forward to the keeping the discussion going and growing. On Dec. 11, Commissioner Clyburn and I will participate in an FCC Town Hall on mHealth and Healthcare Initiatives as part of the mHealth Summit at National Harbor (near Washington) from 12:30-2 p.m. There we’ll elaborate further about our collaboration with fellow Federal agencies to promote innovation, promote safety and avoid regulatory duplication.

Our goal is for the use of mHealth technology to become a routine medical best practice – sooner rather than later. We hope our work with the community – through events such as the FCC’s mHealth Innovation Expo – is a catalyst for more and better mHealth.

The FCC gives its sincere thanks to all those who participated in our Expo:

Today is National Rural Health Care Day, providing an opportunity to honor the life-saving role that rural health care providers play in their communities, and to focus on how broadband technologies can help them do their jobs even better.

Broadband-powered health information technology is critically important in rural areas, where it can overcome the barriers of distance to connect providers to cutting-edge resources that would otherwise be out of reach. Unfortunately, there are many challenges in funding, implementing and sustaining the use of broadband-powered health IT.

One important resource to tackle this challenge is the FCC’s Rural Health Care Program, which includes the new Healthcare Connect Fund. The program provides funding to eligible health care providers (HCPs) for telecommunications and broadband services necessary for the provision of health care. The goal of the program is to improve the quality of health care available to patients, especially in rural communities, by ensuring that eligible HCPs have access to telecommunications and broadband services. Funding for the Rural Health Care Program is capped at $400 million annually.

Through the FCC’s Rural Health Care Program, thousands of eligible health care providers across the nation have been able to expand connectivity and thus adopt health technology applications to:

The week of September 16-20, 2013 is National Health Information Technology (IT) Week. National Health IT Week celebrates the efforts that have been made—and are being made—in the transformation of how care is delivered and paid for and how patients engage in their own health and health care http://www.healthit.gov/healthitweek/.

At the FCC, we’re joining public and private stakeholders in raising awareness of the role of Health Information Technology’s power to improve the health and health care of patients all across the nation, and at lower cost.

To highlight its efforts in supporting health IT innovation, the FCC is participating in a variety of activities during National Health IT Week including:

The FCC is committed to accelerating the adoption and innovation of health information technology (health IT) through wired and wireless broadband. Health IT tools such as electronic health records, mobile health applications and mobile body area networks (MBANS) hold great potential to improve health outcomes and lower healthcare costs.

The Commission has worked closely with federal partners like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to achieve these goals.

Last year, Congress called for the FDA to work with FCC and ONC to provide recommendations for a regulatory framework for health IT that promotes safety and innovation and reduces regulatory duplication. Specifically, this call for recommendations was called for in section 618 of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, otherwise known as FDASIA.

Earlier this week, we achieved an important milestone. A working group of ONC's federal advisory committee released its recommendations on this framework: The Path Toward a Risk-Based Regulatory Framework for Health IT. The workgroup, which included participation from the FCC, formed to obtain broad stakeholder input from across the health care, IT, patients and innovation spectrum. Our three agencies were active participants in these discussions and learned a great deal from them.

The FCC looks forward to continuing to work with FDA and ONC to develop final recommendations to Congress by January 2014.

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